IMO, neck dive on expensive guitars is absolutely inexcusable

[michael_t]

... blessings from several dieties... only to have it neck dive.

There's the problem... Blessings from "dieties" offer no cure for neck dive; only blessings from deities can bring true balance to life.

 

[mikezimmerman]

The Thumb has a short upper horn, so depending on your playing position, the bass may want to hang at an angle that's no what you prefer. That is a *design* issue, not a *quality* issue. If a bass doesn't have a design that suits you, don't buy it, but don't complain about the "quality".

I had a broadnecked Thumb 6 that I liked quite a bit and never had a problem with neck dive, but I also play with the bass fairly high (which helps my left hand with wide necks, but also puts the weight of your right arm onto the body), and had Dunlop strap locks (which extend the position of the strap and a bit). But if you play with the bass lower and want it to hang at a 45-degree angle, you probably wouldn't have liked it.

 

[Maxfenderbass]

My $3000 P bass neck dives, because it is a p bass and the body is astonishingly light.

 

[donahue]

I would say a 4 string bubinga bodied thumb would have least neck dive of all thumb basses and a 6 string would have the most. I love Warwick basses but am also reluctant to try a thumb because I can't stand neck dive. I have an alder bodied corvette that has a tendency to sit totally horizontal and that bothers me enough.

 

[edencab]

I just looked at a few pictures of Warwick thumb BO6....they just look like they neck dive!....like watching a movie of a roller coaster, I felt myself leaning as I was looking

 

[Badwater]

Some guitars are designed for neck dive. Gibson SG guitars is one of them. I'm sure there are many basses and guitars also designed for neck dive. Sometimes, looks are more important than the egronomics.

 

[micguy]

A bass that neck dives is like a car that falls on its side if you don’t lean on it. Should be the first thing you teach a mechanical designer when they join the company. With CAD, you don’t even need to build a prototype to know if it’ll balance.

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

No way ... OP is convinced that it is a QC mistake and that not all Thumbs behave like that ... no way, no way ...

 

[Nephilymbass]

So you got some centuries old wood on the bass you crafted, it has pickups hand wound by fairies, hardware precision cast by the best blacksmith in the universe, as well as blessings from several dieties... only to have it neck dive.

My mate ordered a Warwick thumb BO6 from thomann and when it got here it looked great, he strapped it aaaand... headstock wanted to go to China to visit its aunt. This wasn't slight neck dive that you'd see on slightly lighter bodied P and J basses. No, this was EB0 levels of neck dive right there on a 1900e instrument.

He just returned the instrument.

I told him if he liked it enough he could just use the extended screw to make the guitar balance better, but he told me that if his 150e squier doesn't have this issue nor require a workaround like that, then sure as hell his 1900e warwick shouldn't, either.

Here are the three thumb basses I’ve owned: bo5, nt5, nt6. The bolt on had the worst neck dive. Was he using A cheap nylon strap? These are fairly heavy basses so I recommend a good strap for the weight anyways. As you can see below I seemed to be able to work out any neck dive issues with both the NTs with a nice strap and a metal wireless pack acting as a counterweight.

The worst neck dive I’ve experienced was on this esp viper that I had for a little while as a cheap backup. For a couple bills it sounded pretty good but the neck dive was crazy.

I prefer my dingwall over even the thumb NT basses and it cost less than your friend paid for their bolt on thumb. This is a much lighter bass in comparison(about 3 lbs lighter than the nt6) and it has no neck dive. Looks like they worked that out when deciding where they would put the strap pins, on this the bass the rear strap pin is off center which promotes more of a 45 degree angle when hanging on a strap.

 

[Gizmot]

Some guitars are designed for neck dive. Gibson SG guitars is one of them. I'm sure there are many basses and guitars also designed for neck dive. Sometimes, looks are more important than the egronomics.

I've had several SGs - including one right now - not one of them has ever had any neck dive. They may not be the most comfortable lap guitar, but with a nice strap, they're very comfortable to stand and play.

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

Procedure is as follows:

1) Draw the body shape.
2) choose the scale and design the neck.
3) Trial positioning of strap pins.
4) Finding the position of both the body and the neck centres of gravity.
5) Calculate the moment we c the body and neck weight forces with respect to the suspension force on the shoulder of an average sized bassist at desired of target neck angle.
6) If the calculated moments do actually cancel out stop the process.
7) Change the suspension angle and iterate the procedure should the condition as of bullet 6) above not be satisfied.

Easy no?

 

[Jim C]

Leather strap with a suede inside lining is the only thing that works for me short of modifying / selling the instrument
The nylon straps don't work for me regardless of the bass
What does you friend have for a strap?

 

[Dana R Gregory]

A 3" Glove Leather strap from Franklin Strap will help solve neck dive. I just put one on a Dean 8 string bass and there is absolutely no neck dive at all. I highly recommend these straps. Well worth the money.

 

[Brad Johnson]

He bought a wide neck 6-string(!) bass and is shocked it has neck-dive? How on earth are you supposed to make a 6-string bass without any neck-dive, not to mention a wide neck one? That wide neck with 6 tuners and strings will of course have a lot of weight to it, compared to a Squier. You must have a huge, massive, heavy body or add weights to it to counteract that... And then people would complain about the bass being too heavy

As the owner of several wide spaced sixes, I know that it is entirely possible to design and build with no neck drive. You do have to try.

 

[Brad Johnson]

Not all do, some balance well, some are meh, and some headstock dive, but this one was particularly bad. I'ts a QC error at this point, a guitar with a defect this serious should not leave the factory. Also, making the "horn pipe" a default thing on thumbs would make more sense than forcing people to modify their newly bought instruments so that they don't have a serious defect.

It is not a QC issue. It's a design issue.

 

[AngelDeVille]

Those suede backed straps upset the lines of my spandex shirt.

 

[Rojd]

My Ibanez Ashula 7-string is a sizable piece of wood, and I have zero neck dive. I also use an Ergo Strap, 4" wide, padded, leather, heavy duty, bulletproof. I also wear my bass very high.

 

[InternetAlias]

To everyone who's suggesting a strap as a solution to neck dive - don't.

First off, when a strap holds your guitar in place by friction, it's completely different to the situation where your guitar is held in balance at the strap button alone. It feels completely different and it's a compromise you shouldn't have to make on an almost 2000 euro instrument. Hell, I don't have to make that compromise on any of my own instruments, even my ultra lightweight spector performer which I paid less than 200 euros for.

You aren't supposed to solve a problem that shouldn't exist in first place. If you get your guitar chipped, you aren't supposed to "solve" it by fixing the finish yourself, you send it back.

Second, it's more important to have a properly functional instrument than top tier woods and hardware, because even cheap fender-style hardware functions properly, even cheaper woods will do the job, but a design that's inherently flawed will actually affect playability big time. This is why I am flabbergasted at a design that has great woods, electronics and hardware, yet requires the user to make compromises due to a design flaw this stupid.

BTW, my mate first tried the bass with his nylon strap he had lying around (that's the situation in which headstock just straight up dropped to the ground which was amusing and terrible at the same time), because he always uses it to check basses initially, and even when he used his 3.5" leather strap, neck dive was still present (just not as bad with a nylon strap).

 

[bolophonic]

To everyone who's suggesting a strap as a solution to neck dive - don't.

First off, when a strap holds your guitar in place by friction, it's completely different to the situation where your guitar is held in balance at the strap button alone. It feels completely different and it's a compromise you shouldn't have to make on an almost 2000 euro instrument. Hell, I don't have to make that compromise on any of my own instruments, even my ultra lightweight spector performer which I paid less than 200 euros for.

You aren't supposed to solve a problem that shouldn't exist in first place. If you get your guitar chipped, you aren't supposed to "solve" it by fixing the finish yourself, you send it back.

Second, it's more important to have a properly functional instrument than top tier woods and hardware, because even cheap fender-style hardware functions properly, even cheaper woods will do the job, but a design that's inherently flawed will actually affect playability big time. This is why I am flabbergasted at a design that has great woods, electronics and hardware, yet requires the user to make compromises due to a design flaw this stupid.

BTW, my mate first tried the bass with his nylon strap he had lying around (that's the situation in which headstock just straight up dropped to the ground which was amusing and terrible at the same time), because he always uses it to check basses initially, and even when he used his 3.5" leather strap, neck dive was still present (just not as bad with a nylon strap).

You keep discussing this as though the ticket price has some bearing on the laws of physics. Your friend didn’t like the bass as much as anticipated. Read the thread.

 

[InternetAlias]

You keep discussing this as though the ticket price has some bearing on the laws of physics.

I am discussing this as though there are improperly designed high end basses, because someone who designed them didn't take some very simple precautions.

And yes, I'd expect a bass with a higher price to have basically everything better, not to be worse in any aspect compared to instruments costing 10x less.